Providing psychological first aid post trauma: 1. Help victims meet their basic needs. 2. Listen to others who wish to share their story. 3. Be compassionate. 4. Provide accurate information about the situation. 5. Help victims stay connected with family and friends. 6. Encourage victims to take control and help thenselves. 7. Help address concerns…

At some time in your life you are likely to experience or witness a traumatic event. Those events that involve intense fear, helplessness or horror are more likely to result in a disabling response. Examples of traumatic events are criminal assault, sexual abuse, domestic violence and stalking. Common emotional responses include fear, guilt and anger. Common cognitive responses…

People who were abused or neglected as children have increased risk of depression. Childhood physical abuse increases the lifetime risk for depression. Child maltreatment increases the risk for current depression. Adults with a history of childhood sexual abuse report more depression symptoms than people who did not experience such trauma. Abused or neglected individual with depression are also more likely to…

Self harming behaviour is a coping mechanism for some individuals when they can no longer deal with stressful situations. For some individuals self harming behaviour serves as a marker for those at increased risk for suicide should self harming behaviour and other coping mechanisms become insufficient.

Domestic violence is a crime. Women are at greater risk at home than on the street. Most violence in the home is committed by men. Women and children are most of the victims.

Domestic violence is any behavior which causes physical, sexual or psychological damage or causes someone to live in fear. Physical and sexual violence are the more obvious forms of violence. Rape within marriage is a crime in Victoria. Other forms of violence include making you think you are crazy, locking you in the house, threatening to kill the children, treating you like a servant, and so on. Some have said that these things are just as damaging as physical violence.

If you are in a violent relationship you may feel degraded and alone, afraid to tell anyone, worried about what others will think, afraid that it is your fault, scared that it will get worse if you leave, insecure about your children’s future, frustrated and sad because you have tried everything to change the situation, guilty about leaving, that you have failed as a wife and mother. You are not to blame about the violence. You have a right to be safe. You have the right to live a life free of violence.

Every day many mothers face the awful reality of finding out that their children have been sexually abused. Most sexual abuse takes place within homes. In fact, it is usually committed by someone who is trusted by the child.

If the person who has abused your child is your partner, husband or boyfriend, you may experience a mixture of feelings. You will feel shocked, confused, disbelieving, numb, guilty, betrayed, frightened, hurt, a failure as a wife and mother, angry at him for his actions, at yourself for not being able to stop it and at your child for not telling you, worried about the consequences.

In retrospect many women say that they had a ‘gut feeling’ that something was not OK. But sexual abuse is the last thing that most people expect to be happening in their family. It is not your fault that you were not aware of it sooner.

Many children who witness domestic violence have been found to have higher levels of behavioral and emotional problems than other children. The impact varies according to their age, sex and role in the family. Some children feel responsible for the violence. They may think they are making things easier for their mother by not saying how they feel, by trying to be quieter, better able to cope.

While most children escape without physical injury they may bear emotional scares which in many cases can last a lifetime.

Males are more likely than females to be both perpetrators and targets of bullying. The frequency of bullying is higher among Year 6 to 8 than among Year 9 t0 10 students. Bullying and is associted with behavioral and emotional difficulties as well as the potential of long-term negative outcomes .

Researchers at Oregon State University recently completed a study that suggests the way parents view their children is a critical factor in the potential risk of child abuse, and could even be more important than whether the parents are abusive to each other.

Results of the study have been published in the Journal of Family Psychology. OSU researchers say the relationship between domestic violence and child abuse is well known. For years, the generally accepted idea is that couples who engage in domestic abuse are more likely to abuse their children.

There ia a link between Child Ssexual Abuse and subsequent negative short- and long-term effects on development as well as the development od posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, suicide, sexual promiscuity and poor academic performance,

Sexual abuse history in children is significantly associated with dissociation. Sexual abuse and dissociation are associated with suicidality, self-mutilation, and sexual aggression. Dissociation has an important mediating role between sexual abuse and psychiatric disturbance. Therefore dissociation may be a critical mediator of psychiatric symptoms and risk-taking behaviour among sexually abused children. The assessment and treatment of…

New research suggests that repeat stimulation of certain brain regions with magnets can help alleviate the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a debilitating psychiatric condition that can occur after exposure to life-threatening events, such as military combat or violent personal assault.

A region of the brain called the prefrontal cortex has an “important role in mediating responses to stressful situations,” Dr. Hagit Cohen and colleagues from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva, Israel note in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Psychologists at the University of Arkansas’s Center for Research on Aggression and Violence (CRAV) who are currently investigating domestic violence have discovered that men who beat women fall into three main “types” of offenders. Such insight may eventually lead to improved treatment methodologies and the possibility of early intervention.

Young girls who are forced to have sex are three times more likely to develop psychiatric disorders or abuse alcohol and drugs in adulthood, than girls who are not sexually abused, researchers report. The study, which involved more than 1,400 adult female twins, found that the sibling who was abused had a consistently higher risk of psychiatric disorders, such as depression and bulimia, despite being raised in the same family and having the same genetic makeup as her sister.

Young children who have been sexually abused are significantly more likely than non-abused children to develop behavioral, educational and chronic health problems over time, according to findings published in the August issue of the Archives of Disease in Childhood. Dr. C. J. Hobbs, of St. James’s University Hospital, Leeds, UK, and colleagues studied outcomes of 140 children identified in 1989 as having been sexually abused at the age of 7 years or younger, compared with 83 other children who were classmates at the time of diagnosis.

Children who suffer physical abuse at the hands of their parents are widely thought to be more likely than non-abused kids to harm their own children as adults. But a review of scientific studies on the topic shows that there is only limited evidence to support this claim. Dr. Ilgi Ozturk Ertem and colleagues at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, searched the medical literature for studies on the presence of child abuse in two generations.

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is common for both boys and girls, and the long-term consequences are similar for both sexes, according to the results of a retrospective cohort study published in the July issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Women were identified as perpetrators in a significant percentage of cases.

According to widely held beliefs, sexual abuse is the most common form of abuse suffered by children at home. But according to a new report from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), children are seven times more likely to be badly beaten by their parents than they are to be sexually abused by them.